Stones in the Summertime

(Victor Valley)– From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

A kidney stone is not among the joys of summertime, but researchers say that, as it gets hotter, the risk of having a stone rises.

At Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, researcher Gregory Tasian analyzed data between 2005 and 2011 on over 60,000 children and adults. He determined the risk of stone presentation associated with the temperatures where those people lived.

“As mean daily temperatures increased, the risk of a patient presenting with stones within 20 days of exposure to that temperature also rose.”

Tasian thinks it’s due to dehydration, so he suggests drinking lots of water in hot weather.

The study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives was supported by the National Institutes of Health.